Editorial: Clarity in L.A., Thankfully

Trucking officials have always said they are most willing to take part in Southern California’s campaign to clean up the air around its two great container ports. But it became clear very early on that the Port of Los Angeles was pursuing a regulatory agenda far beyond air quality.

We knew it was obvious and were tremendously gratified to see the Supreme Court say so, too, with a 9-0 slam-the-door decision on June 13 in favor of American Trucking Associations in its legal action against the port.

As reported on the front page, the court agreed with ATA lawyers that the port could not claim to be a “market participant” and threaten to impose criminal penalties for failure to comply with regulations.

Los Angeles was found to be a local government trying to regulate pricing, routes and services, and that is an activity left for the federal government, according to an act of Congress.

“The port made its regulation of drayage trucks mandatory by imposing criminal penalties on the entities hiring all such trucks at the facility. Slice it or dice it any which way, the port has acted with the force of law,” said the opinion written by Justice Elena Kagan.

“The decision is sure to send a signal to any other cities who may have been considering similar programs, which would impermissibly regulate the port trucking industry,” ATA President Bill Graves said in hailing the decision.

The basics of the case — placards and parking — seem like oddly mundane issues for the nation’s highest court, but they are proxies for something truly important: the federal regulation of international and interstate commerce.

If all 50 states — and then counties, cities and port authorities, too — start writing economic rules covering basic operations, trucking companies would become paralyzed and unable to operate efficiently.

Graves said Congress acted well when it expressed a desire for the industry to be shaped by market forces, “rather than an incompatible patchwork of state and local regulations.”

The court’s decision should not be seen as a threat to Southern California’s environmental integrity. Both L.A. and the neighboring Port of Long Beach can keep their mandate barring trucks made in 2006 and earlier and continue supporting liquefied natural gas as truck fuel.

The air has gotten cleaner near the ports, and this case won’t make it worse, but the decision might help L.A. and Long Beach operate more efficiently for truckers, thereby spurring the economic dynamism for which the ports are known internationally.